Giving ourselves "permission" to live again

[Dew's Girl]

I totally agree that permission is the best word.  As others have said, it's not permission from others or even from Daniel that I need.  It's permission from myself.  

I've found that this isn't a one time thing either.  It isn't like flipping a light switch where I'm now ready to start living again.  It's a decision that I have to make every day, sometimes every hour.

For me, it was my desire to live for both of us.  If Daniel is watching, and I hope in some way he is, then I want him to see the Amy he fell in love with instead of the wreck I've become.

I try to stretch past my comfort zone a little at a time.  I give myself permission to laugh and to enjoy friends and family. But like Maryanne says, I find it's also important to give myself permission to still be sad and to still grieve as well.

I spent the weekend with my nephews being super silly and just having fun.  Below is a picture that would never have been possible even six weeks ago.

[Margm]

2 minutes ago, Dew's Girl said:

I spent the weekend with my nephews being super silly and just having fun

Proud of you Amy.  

[iPraiseHim]

Great picture, Amy. Thanks for sharing. Shalom

[mittam99]

Quote

I totally agree that permission is the best word.  As others have said, it's not permission from others or even from Daniel that I need.  It's permission from myself.  I've found that this isn't a one time thing either.  It isn't like flipping a light switch where I'm now ready to start living again.  It's a decision that I have to make every day, sometimes every hour.

So true about that Amy. It's definitely not a light switch (or magic as I mentioned in my original post). It's a conscious decision to allow positivity and happiness to enter our thoughts without that sense of guilt we often have. It's an important step in our journey to find something more in this life than the misery and angst that is so ever-present in our lives alone.

[MartyT]

Good for you, Amy. Good for you!  ♥

[Patty65]

12 hours ago, WolfsKat said:

and I still can NOT bring myself to listen to even one.  Perhaps one day I can.....but right now? No way.  The pain would be too intense.

Totally get that - the TV shows we watched together I am still like that with.  Oh, how Ron loved Hawaii-5-0!  From the time he was a little boy he dreamed of moving to Hawaii from his home in California, then he met me, and my E-Harmony profile said "I'm not moving from Maui!" and he was like, "Great!!".  So, when we discovered Hawaii-5-0 a couple of years ago, we had seasons and seasons to catch up on, and he loved seeing a show about the place he loved so much.  I can't bear to even see a commercial for it now. 

The music was the same way for the first couple of months.  Then something, some urge, some need to hear the lyrics of our songs, came over me, and I didn't even care if I was going to be in pain and sob, which I did, and still do, when I listen.  I don't even remember making a conscious choice to turn it all on.

It's strange how this journey is so much the same, yet so individual for each of us at the same time.

Patty

 

 

[MartyT]

21 minutes ago, Patty65 said:

It's strange how this journey is so much the same, yet so individual for each of us at the same time.

Yes. Exactly.  ♥

[kayc]

Thumbs up, Amy!  Love the picture, too!

[KATPILOT]

Yes that smile reminds us all that it's okay to.  Mitch reminds us that amidst the sorrow we can allow ourselves that.

11 hours ago, Patty65 said:

 I didn't even care if I was going to be in pain and sob, which I did, and still do, when I listen.  

 

 

Music for me is the most powerful expression of emotion.  When I stop wanting to feel is when I stop wanting to live. I can't even express what drives me to allow that pain to come out but I give myself permission to do that too for that is part of living.

[Froggie4635]

Amy,

Great pic and great post...it is that taking it an hour, a day, a week, a month at a time that people who have not lost their spouse can't grasp.  My emotions (mood swings) are worse with grief than I ever had with PMS.  At least with PMS, I knew when I would be normal again.  I am going to keep what you said in my head to help pull me out of those really darker days....to try and be the woman that Mark fell in love with.  And to find a way to get there.  Everything you said was very wise.  

[Margm]

28 minutes ago, Froggie4635 said:

to try and be the woman that Mark fell in love with

I don't remember the person Billy fell in love with, or at what time this happened.  It was just like the melting of a metal, it eventually all ran together into one puddle of "us."  I liked the liquid metal rather than this hardened mass of humanity.  

[Froggie4635]

Marg,

You are right...the person I was when I met Mark blossomed into someone completely different.  He opened me up like a flower, because he loved me...and he raised my confidence.  Before I met him, I was a strong woman...always have been; strong because of the things i had been through and survived.  He always told me how much courage it took to move across the country without really anything in place, other than a place to sleep.  He was amazed by that.  What I was actually doing was running towards finding a new life.  But now, I don't WANT to run to find a new life...so it is kind of the complete opposite of when I moved to Texas and began a new life.  I was excited and eager...and lonely a lot of the time.  But I kept hoping that love would find me.  And it did.  And it transformed the woman I was when I met Mark.  He saw something in me and helped give me what I needed to bring it out.  How one simple action, one simple life changing event...and I am back at square one.

[brat#2]

Maryann - so true.  When I met Dale I was so super shy, but he must have seen something in me and gave me the confidence and support to make me the person I became when I was with him.  Then like you said in that  one life changing event, I feel like I'm going back to the shy me, which I'm really trying not too.  

Joyce

 

[KATPILOT]

1 hour ago, Marg M said:

 it eventually all ran together into one puddle of "us."   

I love that.

 

We are still the person they fell in love with. Grief just makes us feel like we're not.

[MartyT]

1 hour ago, KATPILOT said:

We are still the person they fell in love with. Grief just makes us feel like we're not.

An excellent point, Stephen. Feelings are not facts.

[Margm]

I just sat with Mama, which is all I did.  The nurse came to bathe her and I shelled purple hull peas.  My sister came back and I thought about this memorial we are having tonight.  My sister thinks I should get excited, seeing my friends.  I want to see my friends but then again, I don't.  Am I supposed to have a good time?  My daughter insisted on reading me the poem she wrote about her dad.  She asked "did I mind?"  I said "does it matter, I cannot swim but I guess I need to jump right in the deep end."  So she read it, and I tuned it out but told her it was nice.  

We all take this differently.  I am not a connoisseur of death, but I think I am getting to be one.  I heard Mama's chest rattling, but it settled down and she just breathed normally, but shallow.  I kept watching the rise and fall of her chest.  She woke up, looked at me, then she just closed her eyes.  She had someone with her.  She went back to sleep.  

I went to wash clothes and probably about 14 washers were being used.  We are a clean bunch around here, except #110.  I washed at my daughters..  

Coming home I was thinking about this post and who I was.  Honestly, I think I could make money on "The Walking Dead."  I cannot remember who I was without Billy, I was 18 years old.  Now-I-am-not-18-anymore.  My family wants me to go out and have fun.  I have fun watching "The Gossip Girl" thank you very much.  I moved.  I live out of boxes.  I wait for Suddenlink to hook up my other TV's and I sent Kelli off with my Visa card.  I'm having fun.  Gotta sit with mama again Friday.  Not feeling sorry for myself this time, but I sat and watched my dad die, Billy's dad die, Billy's sister wind down like a clock, no pain, and poor Billy letting me know he had to give up and me not accepting it.  Fooled the hell out of me, yes I did have to accept it.  When he died something else died.  His part of the marriage died.  I will give myself permission to live when I get ready to live.  I'm going places, I'm doing things, but I feel like that old donkey you have to pull with a rope.  "Please Mr. Custer, I don't want to go."  And I ramble on.

[kayc]

I don't know about The Walking Dead, Marg, but you ought to write a book, you could make good money with your memoirs, especially with your humor and style of writing.

[Margm]

Well, I am blessed and cursed with run-on fingers.  

[Gwenivere]

Well, Marg, you could add happy feet and be a wild and crazy 'guy' like Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd were in SNL. 

[Margm]

Gwen and Kay: 

[scba]

23 hours ago, KATPILOT said:

I love that.

 

We are still the person they fell in love with. Grief just makes us feel like we're not.

Maybe I am still that person. But something has changed, there is not "that light" in my eyes. I look at things but I'm not looking at them as before. They pass quickly, all is passing by quickly in front of me. I don't seize moments. Maybe that is why I remember nothing from the last two years. I'm not making new memories.

I see that note of sadness in the pics where I am, me with a "forced" smile. I notice it. People don't. I haven't taken a picture in two years, I visited new places and didn't take my camera with me. I'm living, yes, keep going, but my existence is something different as before. I survived, I have a routine. I'm not running anywhere anymore, I don't have a calendar for my life. I take every day as it comes and face it the best I can. I'm tired of transformation, of new discoveries about life. I wonder what more I will learn after two years from his death.

 

 

[mittam99]

38 minutes ago, scba said:

Maybe I am still that person. But something has changed, there is not "that light" in my eyes.

I see that note of sadness in the pics where I am, me with a "forced" smile. I notice it.

I survived, I have a routine.

I take every day as it comes and face it the best I can.

Ana, this new life without our beloved is nothing like our world before. Everything we dreamed of and all the love we shared is now part of our past. I fully understand about that light in your eyes. I look for that sparkle that used to be in mine and it's rarely there anymore.  Sometimes I look at myself and it feels like I've aged and there's a look of sadness that wasn't there before. They say your eyes are the windows to your soul and our souls have been rocked to the core with overwhelming pain day after day.

This all just takes time, a lot of time. No instant gratification here that's for sure! Ana, you're facing things the best you can and in your own way and that's all you can do. The hope is, that tomorrow or maybe next week or next month or whenever... a ray of hope, a small bit of happiness, or a moment of pleasure will happen. When those moments happen, give yourself permission to savor it, without any sense of guilt. Fact is, you deserve some happiness in your life.

Mitch

[KATPILOT]

For what it's worth Ana when I was two years along on my journey I would have answered much as you have but in the back of my mind I just knew Kathy's feeling for me wouldn't change. What kind of girl was she? I knew she understood what had happened to me and how I was at the time but years passed by and the old me was still inside waiting to get a little air. You speak about not making new memories but let me tell ya, you are making new memories and perhaps not all that pretty either. Later on you will remember these not so good memories and realize that they are becoming "distant" memories. One day you will start making happier one's. Please have faith in that.  You may always see the scars from this time I know but one day others will not see them.  I would never have let anyone take my picture early on and if they did, I wouldn't look. Today I enjoy seeing pictures with me with my grandchildren and if I look close enough, I can still see the sorrow inside the smile even if others can't. My mom use to say  "If you keep frowning all the time, your face is going to stay that way". Oh gosh! Is that why my face looks like this? Was she right? 

Could be.

[scba]

Mitch, thank you. I've had moments of light and pleasure, but the light and pleasure are so different, it is difficult to frame how it feels. I am learning to be kind with myself and to become my best friend. I treat myself with a good meal, with a good breakfast. I stop caring about having people to do things with, I come first now. I do them alone. It sucks, but then I remember "be kind, be kind, you felt worse, you were in hell, this is fine as it is". 

Stephen, my biggest fear is that memories of me and Fred, with time, will seem to be so far and distant from my mind. 

I take the chance to copy a link to an article, I hope it helps someone

moving on vs healing

[KATPILOT]

It's actually a very good article Ana.  What a bunch of emotions we go through.  Sometimes it can feel as if we are in a pin ball machine bouncing off everything we hit. I know you fear the distance of those memories as time goes by and maybe you can't see to believe it right now but they won't go. Love doesn't allow that to happen. We just sense time as taking us further and further away from our loved ones and I think I know why that occurs. I think so much bad stuff we encounter clouds their image. Sometimes bad stuff and horrible days scab us over.  Memories will pop into your head without thinking. A trigger perhaps or a quiet moment alone allowing you to reflect will see those memories and with them a smile over the good moments they were. When that happens, then you will believe.

Mitch you say that you look for that sparkle in your eyes but it's rarely there anymore. You said rarely.   Who says a crescent moon doesn't shine? 

I love seeing people who are grieving do something for themselves. When I first did that, I felt I had turned a corner. Was my life total cra#?  Yes it was but it was like a first step. I have no idea where that step was going to lead but it seemed better than standing still in a puddle of tears. I f you keep walking while you are crying, your shoes stay dryer. You know, I still have no idea where I'm going but I'm making excellent time.

Remember Dory!  Keep on swimming.